


Cadenza (The Rusty Light Remix)

by dreamlittleyo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Community: kamikazeremix, Death References, Episode Related, Episode: s05e10 Abandon All Hope..., Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-01
Updated: 2011-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:34:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Remix) Somehow or other, it always comes down to Sam. Coda to "Abandon All Hope".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cadenza (The Rusty Light Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rust and Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/64423) by [nwhepcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwhepcat/pseuds/nwhepcat). 



Sam's always had a special relationship with guilt.

It's fortunate that his tall gangly frame eventually grew into something sturdier—something with broad, strong shoulders—strong enough, maybe, for carrying the weight of the world. He hopes so, at least, since that weight has always been the sole unmistakable constant in his life.

Weight of the world. Weight of guilt. Whatever it is, it's always there.

He feels guilty for leaving Dean, Stanford or not. He feels guilty for what happened to Jessica. He feels guilty for the way his brother seems to think there's no greater purpose for him, nothing more important than protecting Sam.

And that's all before he even learns the truth: that the way he feels the world weighing him down isn't just in his head. That it really _is_ all his fault.

Antichrist. Fuck.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

He was drowning in a whole goddamn ocean of guilt when he and Dean first met the Harvelles, but it had nothing to do with them. He was a little too distracted by things closer to home—things like Dad.

Because that was Sam's fault, too. That was the first true inkling he had of what was going on. That was the yellow-eyed bastard staring him down with a smile and a laugh, and telling him he was special. Driving the point home with his father's smirk, sending shards of ice to settle in Sam's gut.

His fault. Same as always.

He didn't know until later, after a haunted building and a plan gone wrong, that he had more to regret about the Harvelles than he first realized.

"It was your father, Dean," Jo had said, and Sam reeled. He tried to reason with himself, remind the irrational guilt that he couldn't have done anything. He couldn't be responsible. He would've been, what, twelve when it happened? Thirteen?

But deep down he knew better, even then.

Because, somehow or other, it always comes down to him.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

He felt worse after Duluth.

Guilt on so many levels. He scared Jo. He hurt her—maybe not badly, but the threat was there. He could see enough of Meg's intentions to know what could have happened.

He remembers the security footage from Steve Wandell's house. The blood on his hands—the way Meg wormed her way beneath his skin in the first place—the fact that the blood could so easily have belonged to Jo… All those things _still_ keep him up at night sometimes.

He can still feel his own finger pulling the trigger and sending a bullet into Dean's shoulder. He remembers holding Dean powerless in his hands at Bobby's. He remembers Meg's vengeful wrath clouding his mind, and knowing she wasn't going to stop. She was going to kill Dean, with Sam's hands.

It didn't happen. But the reprieve doesn't absolve him.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

The thing is, Sam has long since lost track. He's fucked up enough times that there's no way he can hold the full list in his head: all the things—all the people—he has to feel guilty for.

Some stick with him more constantly than others. Letting Dean make his deal is at the top of the list. Losing him, too, at the end of that awful year. Failing to get him back might be the worst. Dean is the one person he can't afford to let down, and yet somehow the one person he fails more than anyone else in the world.

There are other people. Other failures, other deaths, other victims he couldn't save—or worse. By the time Ruby filled him in on the secret—Boy King, _jesus_ —it was almost a relief to understand _why_. These things were still his fault, but at least he wasn't crazy.

It's something, anyway.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

Jo and Ellen aren't supposed to go out the way they do.

They aren't supposed to go out at all.

Afterwards, back at Bobby's, Sam can't even feel guilty. That will come later. At the moment he's too busy wallowing in the desolate, hollow feeling of loss. Watching Bobby try to crush down his own despair with the open end of a bottle. Sending Dean worried glances that his brother stubbornly refuses to acknowledge.

Bobby's living room feels impossibly empty. The three of them are distant shades, sitting around a table full of empty bottles and overturned shot glasses: trying to figure out how to mourn and then, when that fails, trying to pound their tattered emotions into submission any way they can.

Sam's not drinking. He's been down that path before—tried to make booze fill up the guilty, shattered space in his chest that comes from watching someone die when he should have done something. If it didn't work after Dean, when he needed it even more than oxygen, Sam knows it won't work now.

Bobby seems to have no such compunctions. He downs shot after shot and then, after awhile, starts to drink straight from the bottle.

Sam tries to interrupt his pace a couple of times, but without success. He gives up when the dangerous glint in Bobby's eyes finally makes him realize that the alternative is violence.

By then Dean has disappeared.

Just up from the table and around the corner, Sam is pretty sure. He even thinks about following. He doesn't want his brother out of his sight.

But then the front door slams, sharp and threatening, and Sam knows better. Dean doesn't want company right now. If he wanted company he'd still be here, at this quiet, drink-slick table. With Sam.

If his brother wants to be alone, who is Sam to push the issue? It's not like he's got a viable alternative for softening the communal, aching throb in each of their chests. It's not like comforting his brother—even if Dean _wanted_ to be comforted—would do a damn thing to quiet the painfully deserved shudder of guilt behind Sam's ribs.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

Sam thinks about grabbing a beer for himself when Dean is still outside twenty minutes later. He can't stop replaying the whole disastrous mission in his head—can't stop seeing all the screw-ups and tears and blood—and he hates it. He can't stop seeing Lucifer, bullet hole burned through his forehead, standing right back up again. Rendering every horrible sacrifice irrelevant.

Losing Jo and Ellen would have hurt like hell even if their mission had succeeded, but this.

Sam doesn't know where to _start_.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

Forty minutes later, Bobby's out of alcohol and Sam is wondering why Castiel hasn't made an appearance. The angel's never been shy about sticking his nose into things before. Especially considering his involvement in the mission, his absence now is conspicuous.

Maybe he feels guilty, too.

That's when Sam hears a noise outside—multi-toned and jarring, a swelling mess of sound that grows louder every second until his ears are throbbing and the windows shake in the walls.

His first instinct is to wonder if this is some sort of attack.

But the sound shifts, sudden and smooth, into something almost like music. It makes Sam's heart feel like it's vibrating in his chest and his toes tingle unpleasantly, even as he decides the sound is beautiful. It's almost too intense. His mind can't process it, and his heart feels full and fragile.

He's on his feet without even realizing it, finding his way to the nearest window. It should be pitch dark outside, but there's a quiet, twisting light out there. Sam watches in confusion and awe as it grows and spreads into the sky.

"What is it?" asks Bobby, sounding suddenly more sober than he has all night.

"I don't know," says Sam. He's already moving for the door.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

"It's Cas," Dean says, when Sam steps onto the porch and halfway down the ramp to meet him.

Dean is staring out at the scrap yard, at the bright prism of mist refracting through junked cars and smashed windows and into the midnight sky. His back is to Sam, but Sam would bet money that there are unshed tears in his brother's eyes. He takes a final step closer, until he doesn't even have to reach to set a hand on his brother's back, and Dean's warmth through the fabric of all those shirts is jarring in contrast to the sharp chill surrounding them.

It's not snowing yet, but it will be soon.

"What is he doing?" Sam asks. The words breathe out of him unexpectedly, caught in a visible swirl of mist.

"This is what angels do when a brother falls," Dean explains. Awe echoes in his voice. "In battle, I mean. This is how angels mourn."

One of Castiel's brothers, Sam thinks, and then realizes that can't be right. They've never seen this before, which means it's private. Why would Cas choose to share now, to show them this impossible, devastating beauty, unless—

"Jo and Ellen," he realizes softly.

"Yeah," says Dean.

"It's beautiful," says Bobby, and only then does Sam realize the man is outside with them. Watching and listening to the same chaotic opera.

Sam shifts where he stands, withdrawing the touch where his palm presses to Dean's back—and sets both hands on his brother's shoulders instead. Dean leans in to the touch instead of shrugging him off, which is almost enough to quiet the stubborn pulse of guilt that makes its permanent residence in Sam's chest.

Sam shifts again, just enough to drape one arm across Dean's chest and tuck his chin over Dean's shoulder.

His brother would never let him do this under normal circumstances. Hugging is no way to solve anything, that's not the Winchester M.O. But Sam needs the contact right now. He needs the modicum of peace that comes with feeling Dean's pulse against his cheek, the warmth that keeps him from shivering in the frosty cool of the night. There's a blizzard coming. Out of season. It'll probably open up by morning.

And maybe Dean needs this, too. Maybe that's why he tolerates Sam's clinging touch.

Either way, Sam is grateful. For a moment, he feels something more than the weighty crush of knowing just whose fault this whole mess is.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

Three days later, Cas comes to Sam alone.

"You have to let it go," the angel says.

Sam blinks, confused. He casts a glance towards the bathroom door—towards the sound of the running shower—and wonders if it's really him Cas intends as the recipient for his cryptic message.

"Excuse me?" Sam asks when clarification isn't immediately forthcoming.

Castiel watches him with heavy, unreadable eyes.

When he finally speaks, it's to say, "None of it is your fault."

Sam feels his own face close off, his expression going stony and guarded and cold. Cas is an angel. He doesn't _get_ human emotion. He's sure as hell not supposed to be able to read the shame in Sam's heart—and even if he can, that doesn't mean he's welcome to stand there poking at it with a stick.

"I don't know what you're talking about," says Sam. Empty defense. He doesn't know what else to say.

"Yes you do," says Cas. "All that guilt? It's not yours. You can't let it destroy you."

"Please," Sam scoffs, and the word almost feels like a laugh—a resigned, bitter laugh. "It's destiny, right? How can it not be my fault if it's _destiny_?"

"You didn't choose this, Sam," says Castiel.

Which actually manages to draw Sam up short. For all the years he's spent thinking about it—cataloguing his fuckups, keeping detailed mental spreadsheets of all the people he's hurt or ruined or worse— _that's_ not an angle he ever considered.

"What difference does that make?" he asks hesitantly.

"Repent and your sins will be forgiven, is that not correct?"

"I… yeah. I guess so."

"Sam," says Castiel, staring at him with sad eyes. "How can you repent of things you did not choose to do?"

The question leaves Sam too floored to respond.

"Just think about it," Castiel commands him.

When the bathroom door swings open five minutes later, the angel is already gone.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

Sam does think about it. He thinks long and hard, and comes to realize that maybe Castiel is right.

He can't be sure. He's spent too long knowing how things are to spontaneously rearrange his whole goddamn world simply because an angel told him to. Besides, there are plenty of things Sam _did_ choose. Plenty of wrongs he committed knowingly, and those will never be undone.

But Castiel might be right, at least as far as his destiny goes. It's a possibility he needs to at least consider.

 

\- — - — - — - — - — -

"We have to end it," says Sam. "We have to take Lucifer down. For Jo, and Ellen, and Pam…" And so many others, Christ, Sam could almost forget sometimes and then suddenly there's this whole _list_ in his head. "For Dad," he finishes lamely. "We have to see it through."

"We will," says Dean. "I promise."

 

\- — - — fin — - — -


End file.
